Bill Gross, chief investment officer at Pimco, admits in this month’s investment outlook that he has “failed to keep pace” with modern technology, which he finds “increasingly depressing.”

From Mr. Gross:

“Our modern age is becoming more virtual than physical, which I find increasingly depressing if only because I’ve failed to keep pace. I don’t even own a cellphone. Still, it doesn’t take a Boomer to observe that the reality outside as opposed to inside a computer or a cellphone should be the preferred experience. Scientists claim we are all just bits of information with billions of 1’s and 0’s, glued together to form a beating heart. Even so, I’m sticking with live chirping as opposed to Angry Birds for now. Virtual reality seems just a tad UNreal to me.”

But all of his talk about cellphones and virtual realities is just a long-winded way of saying that people should “live in the moment.” And by that, Mr. Gross is referring to the so-called “new neutral,” a play off the “new normal” moniker Pimco came up with several years ago.

“Prices of assets are, after all, quite similar to those Midwestern fireflies. On/off, up/down, they never stop moving – and the chasing of them is often frustrating and unproductive,” Mr. Gross wrote. “Pimco’s ‘The New Neutral’ suggests that the real policy rates will be frigidly low for an extended period of time. If so, portfolio management will require a new approach, a new reality that Pimco has always been willing to adapt to.

“To me and all of us here, that’s a virtual certainty – cellphone or not.”

Mr. Gross’s latest observations come as Pimco continues to shed assets. Investors pulled $4.3 billion from Pimco’s flagship Total Return Fund in May, marking the 13th consecutive month of outflows. The May outflow was the biggest on a monthly basis since October and rose from $3.1 billion in both April and March.

The latest setback underscores the challenge confronting the Newport Beach, Calif., money manager following a surprising shakeup of top management in the first quarter and lagging fund performance.